MANCHESTER — To Graysha Chinea and just about every other Manchester High School student past and present, it's just another stairwell — brick walls, grey paint, exposed pipes — functional and insignificant.

But this small corner of the school has been locked in Cesar Sepulveda's mind ever since the day in 2007 when he first saw the love of his life and the hearts bubbled up around his head.

On Wednesday, just after 3 p.m., Sepulveda, 24, stationed himself in that stairwell with a bouquet of flowers and a diamond ring. Family and friends lined the lower staircase, cameras at the ready. A student string quartet seated below waited for a cue.

When a surprised Chinea entered through the upper hallway door, the quartet launched into "Love me Tender." Sepulveda took Chinea's hands in his, told her he loved her and that the past seven years they've been together have been the best of his life.

"This stairwell doesn't mean a lot to you, but this is the first place I ever saw you," he said.

With ring in hand, Sepulveda dropped to a knee and popped the question: "Make me the luckiest man in the world."

MICHAEL McANDREWS / Hartford Courant

In a stairwell where he first saw her Cesar Sepulveda proposes marriage to Graysha Chinea at Manchester High School where the two went to school.

In a stairwell where he first saw her Cesar Sepulveda proposes marriage to Graysha Chinea at Manchester High School where the two went to school. (MICHAEL McANDREWS / Hartford Courant)

Chinea, 22, a 2010 graduate of Manchester High, had been lured to the school on the pretense that her younger sister, a Manchester High student, was receiving an award. Sepulveda and family members on both sides had set it up.

"I'm just like really still shaken up," a smiling Chinea said as friends and family gathered in the school's Silk City Café for a celebration. "It doesn't feel real."